


Dreaming You Alive

by Elemental_sorceress1



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Coulson-lives, CoulsonLives, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nick Fury Lies, References to Suicide, Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, the cellist is a lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elemental_sorceress1/pseuds/Elemental_sorceress1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Phil dies, Clint changes but Natasha doesn't see just how much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreaming You Alive

It's not long after the battle when Clint finds out about Coulson, and it's Fury who tells him, he doesn’t offer any sympathy or platitudes, Clint didn't expect anything else. He thought about how this conversation would happen when/if it ever did, and he never imagined Fury saying he was sorry or anything like that, and he's glad Fury doesn’t, he thinks he may just punch the first person that does, because he cannot handle that. Fury calmly just tells him that the love of his life, the man he owes his life to, his career to is dead and hands him the chain containing the dog tags and the simple silver band that the older man always wore under his suit. Clint curls his hand around it and walks away, when he's far enough away that Fury can't see he stops, takes a deep breath and rubs a thumb over the name engraved on the dog tags. He closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the wall with a thump with a deep sigh that sounds watery even to his own ears, but he doesn’t cry, not yet, that will come later. After a few seconds he opens his eyes and slips the familiar chain around his neck, he doesn’t bother hiding it under his suit, it doesn’t matter anymore if people know.

Natasha's the first one who notices the chain that now hangs around his neck, her eyes zero in on it immediately, and then she looks up, meeting his eyes with her own. Their shining with sadness but there is no sympathy, she knows he hates that. She gracefully makes her way over to him, laying a hand on his shoulder and carefully touching the ring that hangs on the chain. It's a silent question and Clint nods his head, Natasha's eyes get a little bit sadder and she lays her head on his broad shoulder briefly in a comforting gesture.

Steve's the second one who notices the chain, which isn't surprising with the fact that he's a soldier and has seen thousands of them. He doesn’t know the significance of them, so he doesn’t offer his condolences, that Clint has no doubt he would if he knew.

"I didn't know you were a soldier,” Steve says, nodding to the chain like Clint wouldn't know what he meant. Stark who had just walked in stops and stares at the chain for a few seconds.

"Or married for that matter" he commented, and at the looks that he's getting from Steve and Bruce and Thor at the comment he sighs. "There’s a wedding ring on the chain" he explains like it's obvious.

"I'm not a soldier, I never was a soldier" Clint replies, looking at Steve.

"Then why...." Steve starts but Clint interrupts him.

"They’re not mine, they were Coulson's" Clint told him, reaching up and gripping the tags.

"When the hell did Agent marry his cellist and why didn't I know sooner?!" Tony exclaimed as Steve just nodded.

"There was no cellist Stark, there never was. That was just a story he told people" Clint replied.

"Then who was he married to?" Stark asked. "What does she look like? I'm picturing brown hair, glasses, and pretty but not in a conventional way, am I right? What's her name?" he added after thinking for a second.

"I was the one he was married to" Clint nearly snapped, just wanting the man to shut up.

"Agent was gay?!" Tony exclaimed, mouth hanging open slightly. "Actually, it kinda explains the crush on capsicle here" Tony added, gesturing at Steve who looked shocked, but not like he was disgusted which Clint had not expected.

"He didn't have a crush on him, Captain America was his hero that was all" Clint retorted.

"You sat potato I say patoto" Tony said waving a hand.

"What does it matter Tony? Clint lost his husband, shouldn't you focus on that and not who he may or may not have had a crush on?" Bruce asked.

"Aye, friend Banner is correct. I apologise for the loss my brother has caused you Hawke eyed man" Thor said, speaking for the first time.

"I don't want to talk about it so will everyone just please shut up? I don't want condolences; I don't need or want your sympathy or pity for fucks sake! Phil's dead and you telling me how sorry you are for me is not going to bring him back! So just shut up" Clint snapped, voice breaking on a sob.

"Clint" Natasha said; hugging him as the tears finally fell.

"I knew this day would come, I knew it. I knew I'd lose him, but he just kept saying he could just as easily lose me. What am I supposed to do?" Clint sobbed, head buried in Natasha's neck and shoulder as she rubbed his back.

"Do what Phil would have wanted. You grieve for him, you heal, and you be happy again,” Natasha answered. Clint knew she was right, Phil wouldn’t have wanted him to wallow in his pain, his grief, he'd want Clint to move on and be happy again, love again.

"I can't, Nat I can't, he made me happy, happier then I've ever been and he's gone" Clint replied.

"You can, it doesn’t seem like it I know, but you can. Your strong Clint, one of the strongest people I know, you can be happy again" Natasha replied, rubbing at Clint's blond hair and pressing a kiss to the side of his head.  
XXX  
After Phil's death, Clint changes, it's as simple as that. Natasha notices it, of course she does, there is nothing about Clint she doesn’t notice. Clint is the closest thing to family she has left, and she cannot lose him like she lost Phil. For three months she assumes it's just the grief of losing his husband. She comforts him, she lets him cry on her shoulder, she watches the stupid movies that he likes with him, even though she doesn't like them.

She doesn’t say anything when dark circles start appearing under his eyes. She doesn’t say anything when the days when Clint barely gets out of bed start. She doesn’t say anything when he accepts Stark's invitation to move in and leaves the apartment he and Phil shared locked up and collecting dust. She doesn’t say anything when new cuts appear on his fingertips, or when he can barely lift his arms. And she doesn’t say anything when he loses weight.

But she can't ignore it any longer when Clint nearly gets himself killed on a mission; he makes a stupid mistake that nearly costs him his life. But he doesn’t care; he tells her accidents happen and refuses to say another word. After that it just gets worse, he does stupid things he wouldn’t normally do. She knows it's not just grief for a dead spouse now, she can't believe that anymore, no matter how much she wants to.

The final straw comes when Clint nearly dies for the third time, but this time it doesn’t happen on a mission, this time it's not an accident and he can't say it is. When Clint had missed the sparring session they had planned Natasha knew something was seriously wrong, but she never could have been prepared for what she found in Clint's room. He's laying on the kitchen floor, unconscious, a bottle of pills on the floor beside him. There’s little white tablets scattered on the floor around him and a half empty glass of mountain dew on the counter. Natasha panics for just a second before she pushes it down and rushes over to the prone body of her friend. She checks for a pulse and sighs in relief when she finds one as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and calls for help.

Clint's taken to the hospital and then realized to SHIELD when he's stable, but still unconscious and put into a private room. He has cuts on his upper thigh, and there’s no doubt that they were made by his own hand. There’s a note left on the counter, that simply says, "I'm sorry" in Clint's barely intelligible scrawl. Natasha wonders how she could have missed the signs, when she if nobody else should have seen them. 

When she goes home that first night after they are all assured Clint will be all right she finds Clint's favorite bow, the one Clint had bought himself with the money he had made after his first assassin job. Beside it lying on her bed is the chain with Phil's dog tags and ring, with Clint's ring added to it. She puts the bow on Clint's bed, but keeps the chain with her for when Clint wakes back up, she knows he'll probably want it.

On the second day when Clint's still sleeping and most of the team is in the room, Tony and Bruce discussing something, heads bent over a tablet. Steve reading about the things he missed during the seventy years he was frozen. And Thor still on Asgard taking care of Loki. But Steve, Tony, Bruce, and Natasha are all there when the person nobody expected storms into the room. Phil Coulson is wearing an old t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants, and walking with a cane. Natasha knows that the junior agents are never going to forget that Coulson was wearing something other then a suit. But right now she's still trying to think through the fact he's alive when Fury told them he was dead.

"You’re alive!" Tony is the first to break the shocked silence that has settled in the room.

"Yes, now kindly move" Phil replied, voice the same calm tone Natasha remembered. Tony quickly moved out of the way, for once not saying anything.

"Fury said you died" Natasha told him, as he ran a hand through Clint's hair and down his cheek, Clint unconsciously leaned into the touch.

"I'm aware. I'm still deciding if I should taze him or shoot him later for that" Phil replied.

"Both" Natasha said, looking down at Clint.

"I just might. He was supposed to tell him, I woke up a month after Loki and he promised he'd tell him, then Hill shows up at my physical therapy appointment today and tells me this" Phil told her, not bothering to hide the anger in his voice. The only other time Natasha had heard that was when Clint had gotten captured on a mission. Phil had told the people that he would kill every single person in the building. He hadn’t killed every single person, he had killed three, one who had gotten in his way, the guard outside the door where they were holding Clint, and the man who was in the middle of torturing Clint.

"He missed you" Natasha said. She wonders why Phil didn’t try to contact Clint in all this time, but she'll ask about that later, for now she'll let him have this moment.

"I know. I was so worried about him when I woke up, I was afraid I had lost him, but Fury told me you brought him back" Phil replied.

"I didn’t see the signs, he changed but I didn’t see anything that made me think he'd do this" Natasha said, breaking the silence that had settled into the room for a few minutes.

"It's okay, I know if he had tried you wouldn’t have known to be cautious. Clint told me once years ago, that if I died, he wouldn’t be far behind. He never said anything else about it, I thought he was done with that, I should have known" Phil sighed; sinking into the chair Steve had vacated and pushed directly behind him.

"Why didn’t you call him?" Natasha asked.

"I couldn’t, Fury had me hidden in a safe house, said it was for my recovery, so I didn’t ruin all the progress I made. Hill told me he was planning to send me somewhere else, and let me remain dead to my husband. After this though, she couldn’t just let him do that, she said she had to tell me what happened even if it went against orders" Phil replied. Natasha swore in Russian.

"I will kill him!" she very nearly snarled.

"You can't kill him. If you shoot or stab him make sure it's not a lethal wound" Phil told her. Natasha nodded; she'd make Fury regret what he did.  
XXX  
An hour later Fury entered the room, black coat swirling around his legs as he moved, mouth set in a firm line and eye narrowed. Phil was holding Clint's hand, rubbing a thumb over the skin of Clint's ring finger. Natasha had seen Clint do it to Phil's when nervous, so she figured it was a comfort to Clint.

"I thought you'd be here sooner,” Phil said, not looking up from Clint's face.

"Hill waited an hour to tell me she brought you in" Fury replied.

"You should know that Natasha is just barely restraining herself from strangling you" Phil told him. Natasha gave her boss the grin that had made other men wet themselves in terror, but it seemed to have no affect on the man. Fury simply looked at her before turning back to Phil.

"Coulson..." Fury started but Phil cut him off, finally looking up.

"No, you don’t get to tell me about how I need to do my duty for my country, you don’t get to make me think that I would save thousands of lives by doing what you want. You promised me, not as a boss but as a friend that you would tell him that I was alive. You put me away and wouldn’t let me call him, just so you could use me to further your own agenda. It's your fault my husband is lying here right now; it's your fault my husband tried to kill himself! What would you have done if he had died, would you have told me?" Phil asked angrily.

"I didn’t think it would come to this" Fury replied.

"Get out" Phil told him.

"Phil" Fury tried.

"Out! I seriously don’t want to see you right now, I'm ready to put a bullet in your skull" Phil told him, pointing a finger at the door. Fury turned on his heel and started making his way out of the room. 

"Just so you know Fury, you will regret what you did,” Phil warned him, Fury didn’t do anything, only continued on his way.  
XXX  
Clint wakes up later that night, and the first thing he sees is Phil's face leaning over him with a bright light behind his head. Clint smiles at him receiving a small one in return, it's not Clint's favorite smile of Phil's but it'll work.

"I missed you so much, I couldn’t stand it. I hoped I'd see you again" Clint smiled.

"I missed you as well" Phil replied.  
"I know your probably mad at me, you hated when I told you I'd die if you did, you told me you'd never forgive me if I did. But I had to, I couldn’t live without you Phil, you’re the only person who knows everything, I needed you. Please don’t hate me" Clint begged. Phil looked confused for a few seconds, not understanding what the younger man was saying until it clicked.

"Clint do you think you’re dead?" Phil asked gently.

"You’re with me, I have to be" Clint nodded.

"Oh Clint, you’re not dead. Natasha got to you in time, you’re alive and you'll be okay" Phil said softly, brushing a hand through Clint hair.

"No, I cant be alive or you wouldn’t be here" Clint shook his head.

"Fury lied to you Clint, I was never dead, and they thought I'd die for a little bit but I didn’t. You’re alive Clint and so am I" Phil assured him.

"Fury gave me your tags" Clint argued.

"You’re alive Clint, but if you ever try anything like that again I'll kill you myself" Natasha said, and Clint finally turned to look away from Phil.

"Nat! I'm alive?" Clint asked, blinking.

"Yes" Phil answered.

"You’re real! I lost you, I thought you were dead, I went to the funeral, and I thought you were dead. I missed you so much" Clint said, starting to cry, and grabbing onto Phil in a tight hug.

"I'm here" Phil assured him, kissing the top of his head.

"Please tell me this isn’t a dream, I've had so many of them I can’t take another one" Clint said, hand gripping the soft material of Phil's shirt.

"This isn’t a dream, I'm real" Phil assured him again, holding up the chain with his dog tags and both of their rings. "Would you like your ring back?" Phil asked after a minute had passed and Clint had only stared at the chain.

"Yes" Clint nodded, holding out his hand and allowing Phil to slid the silver band that matched his own onto his finger. Clint smiled down at the ring, only looking up when he felt Phil slip the chain over his head, only the silver tags remained.

"Your tags?" Clint asked, picking one up from where it rested on his chest and looking up at Phil.

"I want you to hold onto them for me a little longer for me okay?" Phil smiled, Clint's favorite one, and Clint smiled back, kissing Phil.

**Author's Note:**

> In this story it deals with atempted suicide, and suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, find help. There are people who would care. Thank you.


End file.
